


i am not the only traveler who has not repaid his debt

by daughterofrohan



Series: wake up and run [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multiverse, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), author has taken creative liberties with physics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofrohan/pseuds/daughterofrohan
Summary: “If you die in one universe, you don’t necessarily die in every universe,” Scott explains, and Clint feels like the ground has disappeared from under his feet.His throat is so tight he can barely force air through it.“Why are you telling me this?” he chokes out.He knows why. The desperate part of him, the part that’s been holding out hope ever since Vormir, has always known why. But he needs to hear them say it. Needs to know that he’s not crazy. Needs to know that there’s someone else, besides him, who actually believes it might be possible.





	i am not the only traveler who has not repaid his debt

**Author's Note:**

> HI WELCOME TO THE WILDEST RIDE I'VE EVER BEEN ON
> 
> -this started out as a "quick one-shot" and, as you can see by the word count, rapidly progressed into this beast that i gradually lost control over. this is beyond the scope of what i ever had planned and i need you all to know that this fic controls me, i don't control it.
> 
> -this story would never have gotten off the ground were it not for the existence of three phenomenal women who probably don't even know how instrumental they were to its creation:  
> \--Maya, to whom i have dedicated paragraph 81 (you know the one), even though she will likely hate me because of the context,  
> \--Sarah, who is the sounding board for all of my ideas, told me to write this one first, and only judged me a moderate amount when i wrote it fourth instead. (also for always having a kermit gif or spongebob meme at the ready, your fave could never),  
> and finally,  
> \--Andi, for putting up with my incessant rambling when she wasn't busy making me cry about breakfast foods and for providing the encouragement i needed in order to bring this monstrosity to life
> 
> -title from [The Night We Met](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlgYxa6BMU) by Lord Huron
> 
> -i'm currently tossing around ideas with regards to writing a part 2/companion piece for this so yell at me if that's something you'd like to see?

Clint stands motionless, arms folded across his chest, his gaze fixed on the unlikely duo in front of him. “Run it by me one more time.”

“Well,” Scott begins, for the fourth time, “it appears that there’s this phenomenon-”

“He called it the multiverse,” Peter supplies.

“Right. The multiverse. So there’s our universe, right?”

Clint nods. They’ve been over this part. He can’t help but feel as if he’s in a lecture.

“But there’s other ones,” Scott continues. “All layered on top of each other. Some of them are so similar to ours that you wouldn’t even know the difference if you ended up in one by accident. Some version of us exists in each universe, but not always in the same way, because the different versions of us have all made different choices at some point.”

“Right.” It’s making just enough sense the fourth time around that he can follow.

“If you die in one universe, you don’t necessarily die in every universe,” Scott explains, and Clint feels like the ground has disappeared from under his feet.

His throat is so tight he can barely force air through it.

“Why are you telling me this?” he chokes out.

He knows why. The desperate part of him, the part that’s been holding out hope ever since Vormir, has always known why. But he needs to hear them say it. Needs to know that he’s not crazy. Needs to know that there’s someone else, besides him, who actually believes it might be possible.

He’s been walking the narrow edge of the precipice between healing and self-destruction for far too long now, knowing that any step he takes, whether it be forwards or backwards, could be just enough to send him over the edge. It’s part of the reason he’s been spending so much time at the compound. He knows Laura means well, knows she’s just trying to help him heal in the best way that she knows how, but he can’t stand the careful way she looks at him, like he’s liable to explode at any minute.

Even if it’s true.

“Bruce and I think we may have found a way to jump between universes,” Scott tells him. “We don’t quite have all of the kinks ironed out yet, but…”

“You need someone to test it,” Clint realizes. Of course. They need a guinea pig, just like they had with the time travel, except this is infinitely more dangerous because the stakes are higher than just getting stuck in the wrong time. If this goes wrong, which it could, the person traveling through space risks getting stuck in the wrong _world_.

And so they’d come to him, because who else has incentive to fling themselves through the gaps in the universe following a frayed thread of hope that might, for all they know, lead to nothing?

It’s a fool’s quest, plain and simple. He _knows_ this, knows that whatever might be waiting for him in a parallel universe, it’s not _this_ universe. Even if she’s there – and he doesn’t allow himself to name her, even in his mind, because if he does he won’t be able to stop himself from saying no to this – it won’t be the real her. Millions of parallel versions of her might exist, but none of them would be the one he lost, and he’s not sure he can allow himself to find something just to lose it all over again.

But who would he be if he didn’t try?

“Give me five minutes,” he tells Scott. “I need to make a phone call.”

“Hey.” Laura’s voice on the other end of the phone is soft, casual, but there’s an underlying edge to it that Clint knows all too well. It’s the edge that they’ve both been on ever since he’d returned home, alone, his eyes bloodshot from crying, the horrors he’d seen written clear as day across his face. It’s the same edge that had been in her voice when she’d asked him, ‘Where’s Nat?’, even though she’d known the answer from the look on his face, because she refused to believe it until she heard him say it.

He almost considers not telling her. It would be easier to lie, to pretend he’s calling just to check in, to say he’ll be home in a few days. He’s not sure what she’ll say if he tells her the truth of what they’re about to attempt. A part of him doesn’t want to give her the opportunity to talk him out of it. Another part of him doesn’t want to give her hope.

He settles for a half-truth.

“Something came up. I’m going to have to go off the grid for a few days, I’m not exactly sure how long. I just wanted to let you know, in case…” he trails off, unsure of how much he wants to reveal.

“Are you okay?” Laura asks. Her voice is guarded, like she’s speaking to him from the other side of the wall that recent events have erected between them.

“Are you?” he counters, because to give voice to his emotions would reveal too much, and he doesn’t want her to tell him to go, doesn’t want him to tell her to stay.

Neither of them have been okay, and she knows this.

Clint hears a deep sigh from the other end of the phone, and then silence. Followed by, “Is this about Natasha?”

 _It’s always about Natasha_. She knows this, too. Laura loves the people she loves with an incomparable ferocity, one that had extended effortlessly to Natasha the first time that Clint had brought her back to the farm. He knows that Laura feels the pain of her loss as acutely as he does.

He can’t lie to her, so he says, “Yes”.

Clint waits in silence as she considers this, holding his breath. If there’s anyone who will understand his need to do this, it’s Laura. A fire he’d never seen the likes of before had burned in her eyes when he’d told her about Vormir, and he knows that she’d tear the universe apart herself if it would bring Natasha back.

He thinks, for what feels like the millionth time, that none of them deserve her.

“Just...be careful,” Laura tells him finally.

Dread and relief flood through him at the same time, competing for space. “I’ll do my best,” he promises, desperately hoping that his last words to her won’t be a lie.

The line goes dead in his ear and Clint glances down at his phone. At the bottom of the call log, below another call from Laura, the screen reads _Missed call: Natasha Romanoff._ His thumb hovers over the contact icon.

“The number you have tried to reach is no longer in service,” the phone intones in his ear. A brief, wild impulse overtakes him, and he wants to throw the phone at the ground and crush it under the heel of his boot. Instead, he pockets it.

“Okay,” he says, when Scott and Peter both look at him with the same question in their eyes as he returns to where they’ve been standing, waiting for him in an uneasy silence. “I’m ready.”

Scott pulls out a suit eerily similar to the one he’d worn on their mission to get the stones, and Clint tries his best to block out the intrusive memories of Vormir that threaten to pervade his mind. “We made some upgrades,” Scott says, upon seeing his face, and Clint schools his features into what he hopes are a neutral expression. “Including this.”

‘This’ turns out to be a rechargeable version of the Pym particles they’d used earlier. “As long as you can plug it in somewhere to recharge, you won’t end up stuck in another universe,” Scott explains. “We’re not exactly sure how many universes there are, or how jumping between them works, so I figured it’s best to make sure you’re not stranded somewhere without the juice to get home.”

“Right,” Clint agrees, because he’s not sure what else to say.

“Tell him about the home button,” Peter pipes up.

“Right, yeah. _This_ button,” and here Scott points to a large green button on the suit’s wristband, “is programmed to remember your home universe. This one.”

“How does it work?” 

A wide smile spreads across Scott’s face and Clint immediately regrets asking. “Bruce is super proud of this one. It’s complicated, but essentially what it does is leave an energy fingerprint in your home universe, one that the suit can remember and come back to. Other universes won’t have it, so there’s no guarantee that you’d end up in the same universe twice if you tried to jump between the gaps. But your unique energy signature will always lead you home.”

“And how much time will pass while I’m…gone?”

“We’re not quite sure,” Scott responds. “This is a true test run, because there are a lot of things that we can’t know until, well, until we know.”

Clint glances between him and the kid, who is practically vibrating with excitement. “And is there a way to bring someone else back if…?”

Scott lifts a second wristband, mercifully saving Clint from having to finish his sentence. “I made a spare one of these in case…well. Just in case.”

“So.” The task in front of him feels significantly less daunting than it probably should. “I guess that’s it, then.”

“One more thing.” Scott reaches into his pocket, pulling out a burner phone, which he presses into Clint’s hand. “I’m not sure if you’ll be able to get in touch with us once you’re in a different universe. But just in case, my number is programmed into this.”

“Good luck!” Peter tells him, and Clint can’t help but crack a smile at the kid’s never-ending enthusiasm.

Clint’s finger hovers over the button on his wristband. “See you on the other side,” he tells them, as he presses down and the world around him disappears.

The first thing he notices is the change of scenery. The stretch of green grass surrounding the compound has given way to winding, cobblestone streets, stained with the remnants of a recent rainfall. When he looks up, it’s to see a castle perched on a hill in the distance, the long orange rays of the setting sun peeking around it, bathing the stone walls in a soft glow.

Every city he’s ever been to is branded vividly into his mind, and this one is no exception.

 _Edinburgh_.

And two streets north is a safe house that he knows intimately, even though he hasn’t seen the inside of it in thirteen years.

Briefly, he wonders if Scott’s tech was programmed to do more than just lead him home.

He knows the door will be locked, the same way he knows the window will be open. He doesn’t let himself question how he knows these things, or whether the fact that he’s in a different universe might change the fact that they’re true. Instead, he scales the fire escape and shimmies through the fourth floor window, cursing his aging joints as the twisting motion of sliding through the window causes a brief stab of pain in his lower back.

The room is empty, but a quick glance around shows him the personal touches he’s become so familiar with that he could recite them in his sleep; the light grey hoodie flung haphazardly over the back of a chair, a half-empty mug of tea with dark red lipstick stains resting on the table beside the bed, the hilt of a knife peeking out from under the pillow. If he hadn’t been sure before, he is now. 

Clint hears the sound of water running and begins moving slowly towards the doorway, hoping, by some miracle, that she’s not armed, because he knows she won’t hesitate to shoot him. He edges slowly around the corner, preparing himself to dive behind the wall again if she pulls a gun on him.

What he’s not prepared for, however, is the sight that greets him. She’s standing in the middle of the cramped kitchen holding a glass of water, the top half of her hair pulled back in a messy braid, tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Clint clears his throat hesitantly in an attempt to alert her of his presence without startling her, and her eyes lock immediately with his. Even from the other side of the apartment, he can see the full range of emotions that course through them. Shock. Anger. Fear. Denial. A brief glimmer of hope. And then pain so acute he feels it as if it’s his own.

The glass falls from her hand.

Shatters.

She stands there, frozen, for what feels like an eternity, staring at him. Finally, when Clint’s about to break the silence himself, she shakes her head slowly. “You can’t be here.”

He’s not sure what response he expected; he hasn’t even given himself time to think about what he’d do if he found her and everything is happening so fast and he’s in a different _universe_ and here she is, standing in front of him, _alive_ , telling him that he can’t be here.

“Why not?” he asks her.

She takes a small, hesitant step forward, and her foot sends shards of glass skittering across the kitchen floor. She looks down, surprised, as if she’s already forgotten how the glass got there, and bends down like she’s in a daze, reaching for one of the larger pieces.

Clint hears her soft gasp at the same time that he sees the blood running down her hand, dripping onto the floor and mixing with the spilled water, giving it a sickening pinkish hue. 

“Here.” He slides a dish towel from the rack beside the sink and wraps it around her bloodied hand, applying pressure. He doesn’t miss the way that her eyes widen when he touches her. 

She stretches out her other hand, her fingertips leaving warm trails on the exposed skin of his forearm. “You’re really here.”

He tries not to think about the way she’s looking at him like she’s seen a ghost.

“Come on.” He wraps an arm around her waist, guiding her gently out of the kitchen as they pick their way slowly through the shards of glass surrounding them. Her hand, still wrapped in the bloody towel, is shaking.

She doesn’t move when he releases her, just stands there with a lost expression on her face, staring down at her blood that continues to seep through the towel, staining it red. There’s an entire universe’s worth of distance between them in less than a foot.

Clint realizes that he has no idea what to say. He’d come into this with a barely developed plan; scour as many universes as he had to in order to find one where a version of her was still alive. He’d never thought about what he’d do, what he’d _say_ , if he found her. He’d never considered the different versions of himself or what their presence, or absence, in other universes might mean.

“I watched you die.” Natasha’s voice is shaking, her eyes are red and swollen and overflowing with raw, unmasked emotion.

 _I watched you die, too_ , Clint thinks, remembering Scott’s words. _The different versions of us have all made different choices at some point_. He wonders what the him in this universe did differently, wonders how much the him in this universe did that was the same. He wonders if this version of her has seen the same things, lived the same days.

He mentally curses Scott for not giving him a how-to-tell-someone-that-you’re-the-you-from-another-universe lesson. Not that he really thinks it would have made much of a difference.

“I watched you die,” she says again, but there’s more uncertainty in her voice this time. “How are you here?”

 _Fuck it_. He takes a deep breath. “Because that wasn’t me. Or, well...it _was_ me, but it wasn’t _me_.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she whispers.

“I know.”

She bridges the gap between them so quickly that Clint can barely keep track of her movements, her lips crashing down onto his with violent abandon. His hands jump to her waist instinctively, pulling her closer even as the warning sirens go off in his mind, screaming at him that this is _wrong, wrong, wrong_. It’s not that they haven’t kissed before. It’s not that he isn’t intimately familiar with her, the way you can only be with a partner of fifteen years. It’s not that he feels guilty, because Laura has always been more than understanding of the nature of his relationship with Natasha, has always understood that he needs them both in different ways.

It’s that this kiss feels distinctly different, like she’s asking for something that this version of him isn’t able to give her.

“Natasha,” he breathes against her lips.

She breaks the kiss slowly, leaning her forehead against his in a motion that mirrors their last moments on Vormir together so perfectly that Clint can feel his heart shatter with the pain of losing her all over again. He wonders, briefly, if coming here was a mistake.

“You look like him,” she says quietly. “You sound like him. But you’re…”

“Different?” Clint supplies.

“Different, but...still the same, if that makes sense.”

It does, because it’s the same way he feels about her. “Yeah.”

“So are you going to tell me where you came from?”

“It’s a long story,” he warns her.

She offers a small, sad smile. “I have time.”

“Okay. Can I take care of your hand first?”

“It’s fine,” she says automatically, and he may be in a different universe but it feels identical for all that she’s acting exactly like his Natasha.

Clint ignores her, unwrapping the dish towel gently so he can inspect the cut that runs across her palm. It’s fairly deep, but the bleeding is already beginning to subside. He walks over to the bathroom, returning with the first aid kit, and places a thick pad of gauze over the injury, securing it with two strips of tape.

“Thanks,” she says softly.

“Always,” Clint responds. “You want some tea?”

“Parallel universe you can still read my mind.”

He’s not surprised that she figured it out. Natasha’s much smarter than anyone gives her credit for. He _is_ surprised at how casually she says it, like the Clint from another universe comes round regularly for tea at their safe house in Edinburgh. He stares intently at the kettle while he waits for it to boil, and tries not to think about what he’s going to say to her. He knows what he wants to ask her and he knows it’s not fair to her, to him, to _anyone_. But finding her here feels a bit like a second chance, and he’s not sure he’s ready to leave that behind yet.

Natasha is sitting on the couch when he returns, her legs curled underneath her in the way that reminds him a bit of a cat. He presses a steaming mug into her unbandaged hand and sits down next to her. “So.”

“So,” she echoes.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Clint almost laughs. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“Where did you come from? How did you get here? And…why?” She says the last word so quietly he can hardly hear it.

“Where I come from, there’s this guy called Thanos.”

Natasha’s eyes darken. “I’m familiar.”

“Right. So…uh…Thanos, he got these Infinity Stones. Used them to destroy half the population and a bunch of people disappeared. Including…well, anyways. I went a bit insane afterwards. But you…you found me…”

“Tokyo?” Natasha breathes.

“How did you…?”

“We travelled through time to get the stones back,” she continues, and Clint’s mind is racing a mile a minute because this _can’t_ be possible, of all the universes he could have ended up in, for _this_ to be the one-

“You and I go to Vormir.” Natasha’s voice is hushed. “After the soul stone. And we realize what it costs to get it.”

“I tried to stop you,” Clint tells her.

Natasha looks up at him sadly. “In my timeline, it worked.” She dips her head slightly as she raises her mug to her lips, and Clint’s not sure if there are tears glistening in her eyes or if it’s just a trick of the light. 

He feels dizzy, like there’s a crushing weight on his chest that’s preventing him from getting enough air into his lungs.

“In my timeline, you die,” he whispers. He thinks of the urgency with which she kissed him earlier, and he doesn’t need to ask what happens to him in hers. 

“Was it worth it?” she asks.

“That depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

“We won,” Clint tells her. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“So did we,” Natasha replies. “But I still feel like I lost.”

They lapse into a silence heavy with all the things that still hang between them unsaid. Clint allows himself to sink further into the couch until his arm is pressed up against hers, drawing what comfort he can from the physical connection. He doesn’t want to think about what happens next, where they go from here, who this version of her is expecting this version of him to be.

He reflects, briefly, that for all they’d managed to discover about travelling through time, it’s a pity that they’d never found out how to stop it.

Natasha, every version of Natasha, can read his thoughts as if they’re written across his forehead. “Are you staying?”

His uncertainty must show in his face because she quickly corrects herself. “Not…not like…I meant for tonight. Whatever this is, we can figure it out tomorrow morning. But if you need some place to sleep…”

Her uninjured hand is resting on her knee and Clint reaches over, squeezing it gently. “I know it’s weird. I know I’m…different. But it’s still me, Nat.”

“It’s just…a lot to take in,” she responds cautiously.

“I know.” Clint drags his free hand through his hand. “ _God_ , I know. I don’t even understand most of this myself.”

“You’re in good company, then.”

“I guess so.” And then, “You’re sure you don’t mind if I stay tonight?”

Her eyes are still sad, but there’s warmth in them when she smiles at him, and she may not be _his_ Natasha, but she’s _Natasha_ in every way that matters. “Yeah. I wouldn’t mind having some company for a change.”

Clint places their two empty mugs on the counter before opening the cupboard under the sink and pulling out a small dustpan, quickly sweeping up the shattered remains of Natasha’s broken glass. He follows the soft light at the end of the hallway to the bedroom, standing uncertainly in the doorway when he gets there. Natasha is standing at the window, illuminated in the moonlight. Her hair is now fully down and cascading down her shoulders, and Clint realizes that it’s longer than he remembers. He also realizes, noticing the sweatpants and tank top she’s dressed in, that he didn’t bring anything with him besides his tac suit. Not that he hasn’t slept in it before, but it would be nice to be a bit more comfortable.

No sooner has the thought crossed his mind than she turns, alerted to his presence despite the fact that he hasn’t made a sound, and lifts a bundle of clothes off the dresser. When she presses them into Clint’s hands he realizes that it’s a pair of his own sweatpants and an old, tattered t-shirt emblazoned with the SHIELD logo. She shrugs when he shoots her a questioning look, offering that same sad smile from before. Wordlessly, Clint slips into the bathroom to change.

She’s already in bed when he re-enters the room, turned on her side so she faces the window, her back towards him. It’s a deliberate choice, and he knows this – everything Natasha does is on purpose – but so was her asking him to stay. He could live a thousand lifetimes in a thousand different universes, and there are still parts of her that would be a mystery to him.

He crosses the room slowly, pausing at the edge of the bed. None of this is uncharted territory for them, they’ve shared a bed more times that he can count. In their later years at SHIELD they’d spent more time sleeping together than apart. But he knows she’s on edge, and so is he, and something that used to be easy isn’t quite as easy when they’ve both watched the other die in their respective universes. 

Clint slides onto the bed carefully, stretching out on top of the covers, leaving as much space between him and Natasha as he can on the narrow twin mattress. “You awake?” he whispers.

“Yeah”.

“Can I ask you something?”

She makes a soft noise of assent.

“You and me,” he begins uncertainly, not sure where he’s going with this. “Are we…?”

“Together?” she finishes for him.

Clint exhales deeply. “Yeah.”

“It’s…complicated,” Natasha answers, rolling over onto her other side to look at him, and Clint finds himself nodding because yeah, _complicated_ sounds like the right word to describe them. “Right after the…after Thanos happened, you disappeared for a long time. And then I finally got you back, and then…”

She doesn’t need to finish. She hasn’t told him about the circumstances of his death in this universe, but she’s revealed enough that he knows that he died for her the way he’d meant to back on _his_ Vormir. This him, the one that’s living and breathing and looking at her, can’t help but feel that he failed her in a way by not fighting harder, by not being more insistent with her when they’d argued about it, by not saying _Natasha Romanoff, you’ve sacrificed everything for everybody for so long. Your entire life has been battle after battle after battle. Today you stop laying down your life for everyone else. Today, just this once, let someone else make a sacrifice for you._

At least one of the versions of him did right by her.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. He’s not quite sure whether he’s apologizing to this version of her, the one who’d lost him, or the other version of her that he hadn’t been strong enough to save.

She shifts closer to him, the ends of her hair tickling his face. “What about your world?”

“What about it?”

“Tell me about me. About…us.”

How does he explain the familiarity that comes with years of partnership; the way that he feels like her body is an extension of his own, the way they no longer need words to communicate and haven’t for years? How does he explain that she’s been his anchor in the midst of chaos for so long that losing her on Vormir had felt like severing a lifeline? How does he explain the way that she’s been like a second mother to his children, like a sister to Laura, like such a vital part of their family that the farm doesn’t feel like a home without her?

“You’re my best friend,” he tells her simply.

“We’re not together,” she interprets.

“We are,” Clint insists, “but it’s not…it’s…I’m married, I have three kids who absolutely _adore_ you, and you…”

“Do you love me?” Natasha’s voice is soft, gentle, understanding.

Clint exhales deeply, gratefully. “I would love you in every universe.”

She leans in briefly, a soft press of her lips to his cheek before shifting backwards once more. “Then it’s enough.”

They fall asleep together, side by side, the same way they had the night she’d brought him back from Tokyo before they’d jumped headfirst into time travel and space travel and a mountain of what-ifs. Clint shuts his eyes tightly and tries to focus on the rhythm of Natasha’s breathing beside him, and he doesn’t think about what will come in the morning.

“I want you to come back with me,” he decides the next morning.

Natasha’s eyes widen slightly as she surveys him over the top of her coffee cup. “Back with you,” she echoes.

“Not…not permanently, not unless you want…” he shakes his head, changing directions because that’s not something he wants to bring up, not yet. “It’s just…I’ve seen your world. I want you to see mine. If you want.”

She considers this for a moment, taking a contemplative sip of coffee before lowering her mug slowly once more, eliciting a soft _thunk_ sound when she sets it on the table in front of her. “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Clint asks breathlessly.

Natasha smiles indulgently at his excitement. “Yeah.”

She listens intently as he tries to explain the Pym technology, to the best of his ability. Natasha’s always been better at this type of stuff than him, and she nods like she understands as he fumbles through his explanation of the different universes and the way the suit allows them to jump through the gaps. He watches a shred of uncertainty creep into her eyes as he explains the way that his suit remembers his universe, leaving a trail that he’ll always be able to follow home.

“What about me?” she asks.

Clint produces the second wristband that Scott had given him. “You’ll use this.”

Natasha picks it up, looking at it skeptically as she turns it over in her hands. “It’ll work?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“But to bring me back. It’ll work?”

He wants to tell her that yes, of course it’ll work, _anything_ to get her to come with him. But this is Natasha, and he can’t lie to her, so instead he says, “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

“Right,” she says quietly, staring at the object in her hands. “What more could I lose?”

“Natasha.”

There’s a storm in her eyes when she looks up.

“What happened to the rest of them? Steve, Thor, Bruce…?” _Tony_. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t bring himself to say it. He wonders if this universe is truly as identical to his own as it seems.

 _Why are you here alone?_ , is the question he doesn’t ask. He feels a deep, burning resentment towards all of them for not checking in on her, not taking care of her in the ways he _knows_ that she needs. He recognizes what she’s doing here, because it’s the same thing _his_ Natasha did for five years before she found him in Tokyo. She’s shutting everyone out, and she’s surviving, but she’s not _living_ , not in the ways he knows she can. He wonders how long this version of her will last before she finally breaks.

“I told them I needed some time,” she responds quietly, looking back down at her hands. “They weren’t happy about it, but they understood.”

“You shouldn’t have to be alone,” Clint tells her.

She lifts her eyes up to meet his once more, her hand reaching across the table to slip into his. “I’m not.”

Natasha watches him from the other side of the table as he stands, flicking a switch on his wristband so that the quantum suit appears seemingly out of nowhere, fitting itself to him like a second skin. “Now you,” he instructs her. She slips her own wristband on slowly, her eyes holding his as she flicks the switch. Her face is full of a steely determination as she makes her way around the table, slipping her gloved hand into his.

Clint’s finger hovers over what Peter had called the ‘home button’, the one Scott had said would lead him back. “Ready?” he asks her.

Her fingers tighten around his in response. _Ready_.

As he presses down on the button at his wrist, Clint slams his eyes tightly shut and hopes desperately that Bruce and Scott knew what they were doing.

It takes him a minute to remember how to breathe when he opens his eyes. The sky above him is painted with the vivid colours of a summer sunset, the grass underneath him cool and soft. From where he’s lying – flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him by the abrupt return to his home universe – he can just make out the compound out of the corner of his eye. He completes a brief mental inventory of his appendages; arms, legs, fingers, toes. When nothing feels out of place he pushes himself up onto his elbows, ignoring the faint ringing in his ears that accompanies the motion.

“Someone’s coming,” Natasha warns him in a low voice.

She’s sitting beside him, strands of her hair escaping from the braid she’d had it tucked back in, eyes fixed on the figure approaching them frantically. 

“It’s okay,” Clint reassures her as he recognizes Wanda’s form. He can see the tension in her shoulders, can practically _feel_ it rolling off of her in waves, and the decision to bring her back with him feels impossibly selfish after seeing her on edge like this. He reminds himself that she came with him voluntarily, because it’s all he can do to stop himself from feeling like a terrible person for plucking her out of her grief only to bring her back to a universe where she’s a ghost.

Wanda’s pace slows as she draws closer to them, confusion beginning to colour the lines of her face as her eyes track over Clint before drifting sideways, widening when she sees Natasha beside him. She finally comes to a full stop when she’s less than ten feet away from where they’re sitting in the grass and addresses Clint. “What the hell did you do?”

“Hi Wanda,” Natasha replies softly.

She shakes her head slowly in disbelief as she looks back at Natasha. “You’re...but...but you’re…”

“Dead?” Natasha supplies flatly.

“Well…” Wanda starts, before visibly deflating. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“It’s a long story,” Clint interjects quickly, glancing pointedly at Natasha. “Who else is here?”

“Just…uh…” Wanda’s eyes continue to flick back over to Natasha even as she answers Clint, as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “Just me and Bruce right now. Scott took off yesterday, and Bucky and Sam are-”

“How long have I been gone?” Clint interrupts, trying to quell the panic that he can feel building.

“Just over a week,” Wanda answers. “Scott told me to look out for you, but he never said…” her gaze shifts to Natasha again, her eyes burning with the question she doesn’t give voice to.

“I’ll explain everything once we’re inside,” Clint tells her, standing and holding a hand out to Natasha. She accepts it, letting him pull her to her feet. Wanda leads the way towards the compound, her long, loose hair billowing behind her in the wind. She walks with a confidence she never possessed when she’d first joined them, and Clint wonders, not for the first time, how it’s possible that the five years she missed have still managed to age her. She’s always reminded him of Natasha in a way – of Natasha when he’d first found her – scared, and lonely, and angry, and underneath it all, desperately searching for a way to be better.

“What was it?” Bruce’s voice greets them as the door to the compound swings open.

“Clint,” Wanda replies. “And…”

Before she can finish, Bruce comes around the corner, stopping in his tracks the same way Wanda had done when she’d seen them on the lawn. “Nat,” he finishes. “So it worked.”

“ _What_ worked?” Wanda asks, an edge of frustration creeping into her voice.

“Inter-dimensional travel,” comes Bruce’s awed response. “Like time travel. Only instead of going to a different era, it’s a different universe.”

“A different universe,” Wanda echoes. “A different universe, where people who are dead here are still alive.”

“Wanda,” Clint warns.

She ignores him, turning to Natasha, gripping her hand tightly. “Is my brother-?”

Natasha cuts her off with a sad shake of her head. “He died in Sokovia. I’m assuming that’s another similarity.”

“What do you mean.”

“From what we can tell, our universes have very similar timelines.” Natasha’s voice sounds carefully neutral, practiced. “Almost identical. With only a few minor differences. Or major, depending on who you ask.”

“So if you’re alive,” Bruce says slowly. “Who got the soul stone in your world?”

Clint hears the soft, almost imperceptible catch in her breath. It’s something they’ve both deliberately avoided bringing up as they’ve navigated the fragility of their current situation, as if they’re in a house made of glass and Vormir is the wall between them, and to shatter the wall might cause the entire foundation to shatter with it. 

He raises his hand to Natasha’s shoulder and squeezes gently. She leans into the comfort, just slightly, and he can feel her sharp intake of breath as she responds, “Me.”

Neither of them say anything, but Bruce squeezes her other shoulder, the one not occupied by Clint’s hand, and Wanda’s eyes shine brightly with compassion. Clint hasn’t recounted the intimate details of Vormir to any of them, but they all know what price the soul stone comes with. They all know what she must have had to lose.

Finally, he drops his hand from her shoulder, lacing his fingers through hers and giving her hand a gentle tug. “We should get going.”

Wordlessly, Natasha nods, exchanging a soft smile with Wanda before turning to follow Clint down the hallway. He heads to the very end, shouldering open the door on the left. He watches Natasha’s expression closely, notices how she softens slightly as she takes in the sight of the just-barely-organized chaos before her. “Looks like you’re a mess in every universe, Barton.”

“Cold, Romanoff. I was about to offer you some spare clothes but I might change my mind,” Clint jokes.

She looks like she’s about to respond with a witty retort, but the words die on her tongue as her gaze skips past him to a point behind. Clint turns, following her eyes until he sees what she’s looking at; a collection of framed photographs on the dresser. Before he can say anything she moves past him, lifting the picture in the forefront to inspect it, cautious curiosity in her eyes.

He remembers vividly the day that picture was taken. It was a warm, golden day in late September, the fading tendrils of summer in the air beginning to mingle with the cool crisp edge of fall. Nate, who had just been a baby at the time, was peeking out from a blanket in Laura’s arms. Clint stood between Natasha and Laura, one arm wrapped firmly around each of them, Natasha’s hair shining vividly even in the picture as it hung in waves past her shoulders. Cooper was sitting in front, leaning against Clint’s shins, but Lila stood on the other side of them, both her arms wrapped tightly around Natasha’s waist.

“Is this your family?” she asks him quietly.

“Yeah,” Clint responds, trying to mask his eagerness. “Yeah, that’s Laura, Nate – we named him after you, you know – Cooper,” his finger slides over each of their faces as he names them, coming to rest on Lila. “And that’s Lila. _God_ , she loved you.”

Natasha’s eyes widen slightly in surprise. “She did?”

“She did,” Clint confirms. “They all did. Telling them you were…gone…it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Nat.”

“You’re taking me to see them,” she realizes.

“We don’t have to,” Clint replies quickly. “Only if you-”

“No,” she interrupts him, shaking her head vigorously. “No, Clint, I want to.”

“You…you do?”

“You wanted to show me your world,” Natasha responds. “This is part of it. Part of _you_.”

He swallows hard around the lump in his throat. Not daring to speak for fear that he might start crying, he pulls her towards him tightly, wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.

“I missed you,” she whispers into his shoulder. Her eyes are wet when she pulls back to look up at him. “These past few months…it’s been hard, Clint. It’s been really hard.”

“I know,” he says quietly. And he doesn’t need to tell her that it’s been the same for him, doesn’t need to tell her that he’s hardly been able to look his own family in the eyes because of the overwhelming guilt he feels for being the one who walked away from it all. He still hasn’t been able to recount the details of her death to anyone, not even Laura, because he’s afraid of the way she’ll look at him when she knows the truth. He doesn’t need to explain any of this to Natasha because she knows. And he knows that she knows. And if there’s one thing they’ve learned from their years of partnership, no matter what universe they’re in, it’s that sometimes it’s better to leave some things unspoken.

So he holds her tighter and he lets her tears soak into his shirt, and he tries to shoulder as much of her pain as possible so she doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore.

“What are you going to tell them?”

Clint diverts his eyes from the empty road in front of him briefly to glance over at Natasha in the passenger’s seat. She’s leaning back, her feet propped on the dash, head turned to the side to look at him. To anyone else she’d look like the picture of ease, but he can see the uncertainty in her eyes and he knows she’s more anxious than she appears. He imagines how he’d feel if the situation was reversed, if he was in a different universe, meeting strangers who had been like family to a different version of him.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.

“They’re going to wonder why I don’t remember them. I can’t pretend to have memories that don’t exist in my mind, no matter how good of a liar I am. You know that.”

Clint sighs heavily, flicking the wipers on as rain begins to spatter the windshield. “I know.”

Natasha nods silently, contemplating this for a while before she finally asks, “If we tell them the truth, will they believe it?”

Ten years ago he would have said no. Ten years ago, he hadn’t known there were aliens hell-bent on destroying Earth, hadn’t heard of people who could control minds, control lightning, control _time_. Ten years ago he’d never have believed that there were stones capable of wiping out entire populations or parallel universes where versions of him had lived and died a thousand different ways. And as much as he’s tried to protect Laura and his kids from everything that he can, he knows that they know that the things that he and Natasha deal with in their line of work aren’t entirely…normal.

Except there’s a difference between introducing them to a super soldier or an Asgardian or a man who flies in a metal suit and introducing them to a Natasha who isn’t _their_ Natasha. 

He remembers the week he’d had to sit them down and break the news to them; how Lila had stayed home from school for ten days, had barely eaten, had locked the door to her room and refused to talk to him or Laura, her sobs echoing through the upstairs hallway. He remembers her declaring that she was never going to be happy again, remembers reading the letters she’d written and then thrown – crumpled – into the garbage. He remembers the blank look in Cooper’s eyes and the way it had taken him just a second too long to answer questions, remembers Nate asking him when Nat was coming home because he’s still too young to understand the difference between gone and _gone_. He remembers Laura crying herself to sleep late at night when she thought he couldn’t hear her.

How do you tell people that someone they love is back, but not really?

“I don’t know,” he says again, hating that he can’t give her a better answer. “All we can do is try.”

“What if they don’t want me there?” He can hear the quiet undertones in her voice, the fear that these people who loved a different version of her won’t accept her as she is. And if he’s honest with himself, he’s just as scared as she sounds. But he remembers the day he’d first brought Natasha home with him, shortly after she’d come to SHIELD, when she’d still been angry and violent and rough around the edges, and Laura had welcomed her with open arms. He has to believe she’ll do it again. He has to believe they all will. 

“They will,” he reassures her, hoping he sounds more confident than he feels. “They _do_.”

He can see the conflict raging in her eyes, see the moment she finally decides to believe him, because she has no choice but to hope desperately that this works. “Okay.”

Clint reaches over, wrapping his hand around one of hers, squeezing her fingers briefly. “Okay,” he agrees.

They drift into a companionable silence as they continue to speed down the empty country roads, late afternoon sunlight drifting through the windows as Natasha hums along softly to the radio. They’re comfortable with each other in a way that feels familiar and yet altogether strange, and Clint tries to reconcile this new Natasha with all the parts of her that are still so intimately _Natasha_ in every way that he remembers. It’s a bit like re-learning an old favourite song.

As if even the radio can read his mind, the soft sounds of an old Eagles song begin to drift through the speakers. Natasha’s quiet humming fades into silence, and Clint wonders if the music reminds her of the same thing it reminds him. “How many parts of us do you think are the same?” she asks finally.

“I’m not sure.” He cracks a smile. “Have you filed that paperwork for Kandahar yet?”

“That was your job!”

“I had a traumatic brain injury!”

“Calling your concussion a traumatic brain injury to make it seem more dramatic does not excuse you from filing the paperwork that you _promised_ me you’d-” she stops when she sees his shoulders shaking from laughter. “What?”

“I guess it’s the same,” he answers. “Well, Kandahar, at least.”

She returns his smile. “Better not let Fury know I’m alive then. He never did get off my case for that one.”

“Tash,” he breathes, softly, before he can stop himself.

“Yeah?”

“What about Budapest?”

Her expression is guarded. “What about it?”

If he closes his eyes, he can still see the images just as vividly as he did the first time. Blood. Sweat. Gunfire. And Natasha, in his arms, with tears streaming down her face as the entire world fell apart around them. As _his_ entire world fell apart in front of him. _Please don’t let me die._

 _There are some bridges you can only cross once,_ Coulson had once told him.

Over time it had become like a code, a pact that they’d made without ever having to tell each other. It was what they fell back on in their darkest moments, it was the way they took stock of damage after particularly rough missions, it was what had gotten them through Loki and Ultron and the collapse of SHIELD and all the way to the edge of the universe where they’d died for each other.

When they say _Budapest_ , it means _trust me_.

He reaches for her hand at the same time that she reaches for his, and for a brief moment he’s back on a rooftop halfway across the world, watching dust and ash fall around them as the flames, blazing brighter than Natasha’s hair in the sunlight, slowly eat away at the building’s foundation.

They’ve jumped to die and they’ve jumped to live, and not necessarily in that order.

Something tells him that they’re not quite done jumping just yet.

“Tell me about them,” Natasha says.

And so he spends the rest of the drive telling her stories; recounting the moments she was there for and the moments she missed in as much detail as he can remember. Every once in a while he thinks he must be boring her, but whenever he turns to look at her she’s listening to him intently, a soft, private smile on her face as he tells her about his family. Her family. Their family. He knows that his words can never replace the memories she doesn’t have, but they’re all he has to offer, so he does the only thing that he can do. He hopes it’s enough.

It’s nearing midnight by the time they pull into the long gravel driveway, the stars shimmering brightly overhead in the way they only ever do in the country. A soft, cool breeze caresses the treetops; the wind whispering her secrets into the nothingness that surrounds them.

“I like it here,” Natasha decides, smiling softly up at the sky as she steps out of the car. 

Clint inhales deeply, letting the country air permeate his lungs. There’s something about the farm that makes his anxieties seem smaller, somehow. They’re still there, beneath the surface, but they seem to matter less in the grand scheme of the vast emptiness of the land and sky. He likes feeling small.

“Did you tell anyone we were coming?” Natasha’s voice jolts him out of his reverie.

He shakes his head. It’s not unusual for either of them to show up unannounced, Laura’s become accustomed to it over the years. He almost wonders if he should have called ahead with some kind of warning, given their circumstances, but this isn’t the type of conversation he wants to have over the phone. “The kids should be asleep by now,” he tells her. “I think it’s best if Laura sees you before they do.”

“You’re sure this is a good idea?”

“Have I ever been sure that anything is a good idea?”

“Point,” she concedes, smiling as she reaches for his hand. “Let’s go.”

The front door creaks slightly as Clint pushes it open, Natasha trailing soundlessly behind him. He can see the faint glow of the kitchen light down the hall. “Laura?” he calls softly, careful not to let his voice carry too far throughout the house. 

She emerges from the kitchen, the soft light from behind her illuminating her like a halo as she stands in the doorway. “Clint? It’s late. Are you…are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He takes a step towards her. “I…uh…I brought someone back with me. If that’s okay?”

Laura’s face softens. “Of _course_. It’s always okay, Clint.” She closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his waist, leaning back so that she can look up at him. “Who is it?”

He takes a deep breath. “I think it’s probably best if she tells you herself.”

Natasha moves slowly as she comes out of the shadows, her hands held out in front of her. Clint can hear the hitch in Laura’s breath as she presses herself closer to his side, shaking ever so slightly. “No,” she says, her cheek pressing into his chest as she shakes her head. “No, that’s not possible.”

“Hi Laura,” she says quietly.

“Nat,” Laura breathes, pulling away from Clint ever so slightly. “Oh my God, _Nat_.” And without so much as a warning, she throws herself at Natasha, burying her face in the other woman’s shoulder. Clint tenses, ready to intervene, but Natasha returns the embrace as if it’s natural to her. When Laura finally pulls back it’s to place both her hands on Natasha’s shoulders, tears shining in her eyes as her fingers briefly touch the braid that falls down Natasha’s back. “I like your hair.”

Natasha laughs softly. “I needed a bit of a change.”

“You died,” Laura tells her. 

“I know.”

“You’re here,” Laura says slowly, like she’s still trying to convince herself.

“I know,” Natasha repeats.

Laura blinks and the tears spill over, leaving glistening tracks on her cheeks. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Clint marvels at the ease with which Natasha pulls Laura into another embrace, one hand coming up to stroke her hair soothingly as she whispers, “I know.”

“How…?”

“It’s a long story,” Clint interrupts quietly, conscious of the fact that they’re standing at the base of the stairs, where sound might carry up. Laura, to her credit, is taking things far better than he expected, but the last thing he wants is for Cooper or Lila to hear them before he’s had a chance to explain everything to her. He places a hand on her shoulder, gently steering her back towards the kitchen. “Come on. I’ll explain everything.”

Laura immediately busies herself with the kettle as soon as they set foot in the kitchen, pulling mugs out of the cupboard above the sink. Natasha’s eyes widen in surprise when Laura places a steaming mug in front of her, two teabags instead of one because Natasha’s always had an affinity for strong tea, and it’s the little things like these that Laura always makes sure to notice about the people she cares about.

Natasha runs her thumb along the mug’s handle. “How did you know?”

“I may have disappeared for five years, but I still know how you take your tea, Nat.”

A heavy silence stretches out between them as Natasha stares at the tea in front of her and Laura stares at Natasha and Clint stares at Laura, all of them waiting for the other to make the first move.

“So,” Laura says finally, when neither Clint or Natasha break the silence. “So you’re just back from the dead? Just like that?”

Clint wishes desperately that it could be that easy.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Natasha responds softly. “I’m not sure I can explain-”

“Try me,” Laura interrupts. “I woke up two months ago to find out that I’ve spent the past five years as a pile of dust while the world moved on without me. There’s not much I won’t believe anymore.”

Natasha makes eye contact with him from across the table and he can see the reluctance in her expression. She’s already been through this once, back at the compound with Bruce and Wanda, and he knows that, by all rights, he should be the one to explain everything this time. So he takes a deep breath, and begins. “Remember what I told you about the quantum realm? How we used it to travel through time?” This, at least, is something all three of them are varying levels of familiar with.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, honestly,” Laura responds.

“Well,” Clint continues, “it turns out that time isn’t the only way you can travel.”

“What do you mean?”

“All those timelines are different,” he tells her, wishing he had Scott or Bruce here to explain this for him because he _still_ barely understands the mechanics of why it works. “But they all still take place in our world, our universe. And it turns out there are other universes, with their own versions of those timelines and, well...their own versions of _us_.”

Laura shakes her head slowly, looking from him to Natasha, and then back to him. “What are you saying?”

“There’s a version of each of us in each universe,” he explains. “They’re all the same person, but each one makes different choices, and each universe is a little bit different because of that.” He glances up at Natasha again. “Or a lot different. Or...almost the same.”

“I still don’t understand,” Laura breathes, and Clint wonders if she even knows that the hint of denial he detects in her voice is there. Because she knows, _knows_ that she knows, but she doesn’t want to believe it. He can’t blame her, really.

He locks eyes with Natasha again, sending her a desperate, unspoken plea. _Help me_. She dips her head slightly in acknowledgement, taking a small sip of her tea before placing the mug gently on the table, clearing her throat. “In my universe,” she says quietly, and Clint doesn’t miss the way Laura’s breath catches audibly in her throat, “Clint and I went to Vormir to get the soul stone. But...I survived.”

“Oh my God.” Laura’s voice is hollow. She shakes her head back and forth slowly, eyes fixed on the table in front of her. “Oh my God. Oh my _God_.”

“Laura-” Clint begins, but she cuts him off with a sharp shake of her head.

“I can’t do this right now, Clint, I need space, I need…”

“Laura, _please_.”

She stands up from the table, her chair scraping loudly across the kitchen floor, and Clint winces at the noise, hoping it wasn’t enough to wake up any of the kids. “I’m sorry,” she tells him. “This is just too much right now. I need some air.” She exits the kitchen, and a few seconds later they can hear the soft _slap_ of the screen door swinging shut behind her.

“This is my fault,” Natasha says immediately, and it’s like she’s twisted a knife into Clint’s chest, with how easily she’s willing to absolve him of all blame for this. 

“Natasha…”

“Don’t.” She cuts him off firmly. “Don’t do that. None of this would have happened if I didn’t come here.”

“You’re only here because I _brought_ you,” Clint replies, deliberately keeping his voice low even through his frustration. “Because I came barging into your universe and ripped you out of it when I should have left you the hell alone. This is on _my_ head, Nat. Not yours.”

“I should talk to her.”

Clint sighs, dropping his head into his hands in a gesture of defeat. “What are you going to say?”

She shrugs hopelessly. “I don’t know.”

The air is unusually cool for the time of year, and Natasha pulls her borrowed flannel tighter around her shoulders as she makes her way towards the shadowy outline of the figure on the edge of the deck, her footsteps louder than normal to alert Laura that she’s coming.

Her shoulders stiffen as she hears Natasha’s approach, and she speaks without turning around. “Clint, I told you I need-”

“It’s me,” Natasha interrupts softly as she moves to stand beside Laura. “Can I sit with you?”

Laura looks up at her, moonlight reflecting off of the tears in her eyes. “Is it even really you, Nat?”

“It’s me in every way that matters.” She motions to the space beside Laura as she repeats, “Can I sit with you?”

“Okay.”

Not for the first time since she and Clint left the safe house in Edinburgh, Natasha reflects on the laws of the universe. There’s too many things she doesn’t understand; how Clint’s home universe _remembers_ him, how some things can be exactly the same while others are vastly different, and how a woman she’s never met can somehow feel intimately familiar to her. She wonders if there’s a bit of this universe’s Natasha in her, if this universe is trying to accept her as its own now that her counterpart is gone.

Slowly, Natasha wraps an arm around Laura’s shoulders. She’s not sure how the other woman will react, but Laura leans into the comfort, dropping her head to rest on Natasha’s shoulder, tears leaking slowly out of the corners of her eyes.

“I may not have the same memories I used to,” she tells Laura. “I may have to re-learn some things, to re-learn _me_ , in a way, but I’m still the same person.”

“How am I supposed to explain this to the kids?” Laura takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Natasha squeezes her shoulder briefly, offering what support she can. “They already think you’re dead. How am I supposed to tell them that you’re back, but you don’t remember them? It’s been two months, Nat, it’s not like we can just pretend this was all a bad dream.”

Because she doesn’t know what else to say, Natasha gives Laura the same advice she’d given Clint on their drive up to the farm. “What if we told them the truth?”

“They’re _kids_ , Nat. We’ve been trying so hard to protect them from all of this for so long. They know enough to know that what you and Clint do is dangerous, but I’m not sure if they're ready for something like this.”

“Maybe it’s not a matter of being ready.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean that maybe none of us are ever ready,” Natasha says gently. “This morning I woke up in a different universe. This is just as new to me as it is to all of you. And if you don’t want me anymore – if you want me to leave – I can be gone before the sun’s up. But if you’ll let me stay, we can figure this out together.”

“This is your home,” Laura tells her. “Your family. And the fact that you don’t remember it doesn’t change that, Natasha. You...whatever version of you this is, you’re still a part of us. How could I ever ask you to leave?”

Natasha lets out a breath that she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. “So what do we do, then?”

“Like you said.” Laura offers her a small smile. “We’ll figure it out together.”

Clint’s still sitting at the table when they return to the kitchen, fiddling idly with the string of the tea bag that hangs from Natasha’s neglected mug. His eyes skip over Laura briefly before coming to rest on Natasha. “Okay?” he asks her.

She nods. “We’re okay.”

“You’re probably exhausted,” Laura remarks, touching Natasha’s shoulder lightly. “Come on. We kept your old room just…just in case. I’ll show you where everything is.”

Natasha lets Laura lead her up the stairs and to the left. The old wooden door creaks slightly as Laura pushes it open, warm light flooding the bedroom when she flicks a switch on the wall. A crocheted afghan covers the bed, its red and purple stripes offering a splash of colour to the otherwise muted room. A single, wilted sunflower, long gone dry, sits in a vase on the dresser beside a stack of mismatched sweaters. Natasha can just barely see the hilt of a knife peeking out from under the pillow. 

“No one’s been in here since, well…” Laura trails off, but Natasha can hear the part that remains unspoken. _Since you died_.

Natasha’s about to say something, thank her, maybe, but the words die on her tongue as Laura pulls her into a hug. It’s soft, and warm, and comforting, and achingly familiar somehow, and Natasha swallows hard against the lump in her throat because she doesn’t deserve this love from the sister she doesn’t even remember, and yet Laura offers it to her anyway.

“Thank you,” Natasha whispers roughly as she pulls back, quickly wiping away the tears that have formed in her eyes before they have a chance to fall, amazed that she’s allowed herself to feel so comfortable around this woman that she’s only just met. It had taken her _weeks_ before she’d had a discussion with Clint about anything besides work back when he’d first brought her in to SHIELD, _months_ before she’d been comfortable opening up to him about anything personal, almost a year before she’d let him see her cry for the first time. And now she’s willing to cross all of these bridges in a day, with a stranger who isn’t really a stranger in a home that isn’t hers but also is, in a world where she doesn’t belong, and yet somehow fits in perfectly, like a missing puzzle piece.

Laura gives her a watery smile, her eyes shining with tears that mirror Natasha’s. “Get some sleep, Nat.”

Natasha sinks down onto the bed as the door swings softly shut behind Laura. A cool breeze filters through the open window, tugging on the loose strands of hair that are escaping from her braid. Laura was right, she _is_ exhausted, far more than she’s been in a long while. She wonders if that’s attributable to the stress that alternate-universe travel places on the body, or if it’s her emotions that are weighing on her so heavily that she can barely keep her eyes open.

She’s just pulled on a pair of sweats that she found in one of the dresser drawers and is in the process of unbraiding her hair when the door cracks open slightly. Clint’s voice is soft as he asks her, “Can I come in?”

She runs her fingers through her hair, letting it fall down her back in loose waves. “Yeah.”

“Hey, uh…” he rubs the back of his neck in the way he always does when he’s self-conscious, letting the door fall shut behind him. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay,” she responds. “It’s just…a lot.”

“Yeah,” Clint agrees, crossing the room to sit on the edge of her bed. “How did Laura take it?”

Natasha sits back down next to him, bumping her shoulder against his in an old gesture of familiarity that causes him to crack a smile. “Better than I expected. I think she just needs time.”

“So how long are you staying?”

She freezes, carefully avoiding eye contact with him. It’s not something she’s allowed herself to think about. It’s not something she thought she’d want. But despite all the ways that being here feels foreign to her, it’s also familiar. It feels like something she wants to remember.

Fiddling idly with the hem of the afghan that covers the bed, she responds, “I haven’t thought about that yet.”

“Okay.” He covers her hand with his, her restless fingers stilling against the blanket. “I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to leave. Not unless you want to.”

 _This is your home_ , Laura had told her. And she wants to believe it, wants _desperately_ for this to be the place where she belongs, but despite the way that some things feel so free and easy somehow, she still can’t help but feel like an imposter; an outsider, stepping into a life that was made for someone else. Stepping into the hole left by her former self. They deserve _their_ Natasha back, and despite what she’d told Laura about being the same in every way that matters, she’s not entirely sure she believes it herself.

She’s experienced a lifetime’s worth of emotions in one day and she’s been compartmentalizing them, filing them behind closed doors in her mind. And now they’re all threatening to come bursting through the barricades she’s so carefully constructed.

She doesn’t even realize that she’s crying until Clint’s fingertips gently brush the tears away from under her eyes. “Hey. Tash, hey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just afraid that I can’t be the person you need me to be,” she confesses.

“That’s your problem.”

“What is?”

He tugs gently on the end of her braid. “You’re trying to hard to be whatever everybody else needs from you. Just be you.”

Natasha laughs softly, because he makes it sound so _simple_ in a way that she knows it never is. “What if that’s not enough?”

“Hey,” he accuses, but the way that he wraps his arm around her shoulders is impossibly gentle. She leans into the contact because it’s been far too long since she’s allowed herself to feel this comfortable in the presence of someone else. “To the people that matter, it will be.”

She nods into his shoulder, taking a deep, shuddering breath. She’s not entirely sure if she’s crying for what she’s lost, or for what she’s found, or for fear that she might have to lose everything all over again. The collar of his shirt is damp with her tears but if he notices, he doesn’t mention it, just tightens his arms around her and lets her cry until she has no tears left.

“You okay?” he asks her finally.

“Yeah.” She wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Just tired.”

“I’ll let you sleep.”

He’s halfway to the door before she calls after him. “Clint?”

“Yeah, Nat?”

“Thank you.” She doesn’t elaborate because she doesn’t need to. Because there are mountains of unspoken things between them, and there always will be, but all of those things are insignificant when compared to the transparency of moments like this.

“Night, Tasha.”

The door swings shut behind him, and she smiles softly to herself as she drifts off to sleep to the sound of the wind rustling through the treetops.

For the first time in months, Natasha wakes up slowly. A cool breeze drifts through the open window, caressing her face as morning sunlight filters through the panes, bathing the room in a soft, golden glow. She pulls the afghan with her as she slips out of bed, wrapping it around her bare shoulders to counteract the morning chill.

The smell of coffee greets her as she enters the kitchen. Clint’s back is to her as he busies himself with a pan of eggs over the stove. Natasha nudges her shoulder against his as she steps up beside him to pull mugs from the cabinet. “Laura still asleep?”

“Yeah. Kids too,” he says, answering the unspoken part of her question.

“Do you think you should talk to them before…?” _Before they walk in here and see me, back from the dead, and expect me to remember them?_

“I-” Clint begins, but a noise from the doorway cuts him off, and when they turn, they realize that it’s already too late. A small form stands in the door, staring at them with shock plastered across his face, eyes so wide that it’s almost comical. He’s much older than in the picture she’d seen at the compound, but she knows that this must be Clint and Laura’s youngest, Nathaniel. Her namesake, according to Clint.

He stands frozen, his eyes moving from Natasha to Clint and then back to Natasha, for a moment that feels like an eternity. She can feel, rather than hear, Clint’s sharp intake of breath beside her. And then Nate’s face breaks into a grin as he runs across the kitchen and throws himself at her, wrapping himself around her legs with such force that he almost knocks her off balance. “Auntie Nat!” he squeals, loud enough to wake the whole house, and Natasha shoots a panicked look at Clint, who just shrugs, a bemused expression on his face.

“Auntie Nat’s back!” Nate continues to screech as he runs from the kitchen as quickly as he’d arrived, his footsteps pounding on the stairs. “Lila! _Lila!_ ”

“You know,” Clint tells her, his voice full of barely suppressed laughter as he pours coffee into the empty mug she’s holding. “That could have gone a lot worse.”

“It’s not over yet,” Natasha says, as a young girl’s voice comes drifting from up the stairs.

“Auntie Nat’s _dead_ , Nate. Dead people can’t come back.”

“But she _is_ ,” comes Nate’s insistent voice. “Come see!”

“Breathe,” Clint whispers, squeezing Natasha’s shoulder gently.

Nate comes skidding around the corner, pulling a reluctant Lila by the hand, who freezes in the doorway the same way her brother had, her face a ghostly shade of white. “ _See?_ ” Nate implores, pointing unnecessarily at Natasha.

Lila shakes her head slowly, taking one step back, and then another. And then, before either of them can say anything, she turns, dropping her brother’s hand as she runs out of the kitchen.

“I’ll go-” Clint begins, but Natasha shakes her head, touching his wrist lightly.

“It’s okay. Let me.”

“Gonna be late for school _again_ ,” she hears Clint mutter under his breath.

“We’re never late when Mom drives us!” Nate pipes up helpfully, and Natasha can’t help but grin to herself as she exits the kitchen.

She knocks softly on the door to Lila’s room – she can tell it’s Lila’s because of the muffled sobs coming from the other side – and steels herself for another difficult conversation. “Can I come in?”

“No,” comes the reply from the other side of the door.

Natasha takes a deep breath. “Please?”

She hears a soft creaking sound followed by footsteps, and then the door cracks open just wide enough for her to see a pair of red, tear-stained eyes looking out at her. “Are you a ghost?”

“I’m not a ghost,” Natasha promises.

The door opens another inch. “Nate kept asking me when you were coming back. I told him dead people can’t come back, not ever.”

“You were right,” Natasha tells her gently. “Can I come in and tell you a story?”

She considers this for a moment before she finally opens the door wide enough for Natasha to enter. It amazes her, how much of Clint there is in this young girl; the hard determination in her eyes that almost masks her fear, the challenge in her voice when she’d said _dead people can’t come back_. Natasha scans the room automatically, the habitual inventory she performs any time she enters an unfamiliar space. It could almost pass for a normal eleven-year-old girl’s bedroom, if it weren’t for the hilt of a knife peeking out from under the pillow. Despite what she’s been told, she hadn’t been expecting to see any of herself in Clint’s children.

Natasha crosses the room to examine the knife more closely, tracing the shape of the hilt with her fingertips. Despite all the ways she knows that Clint would do anything to keep his family safe, she doubts he would have given his daughter a weapon. “Where did you get this?”

Lila’s face falls slightly. “You don’t remember.”

“There’s a lot that I don’t remember,” Natasha tells her honestly. “You’re going to have to help me. Do you think you can do that?”

Lila nods solemnly, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and Natasha sits down beside her, mirroring her position. “I never told Dad about the knife. You said it was our secret.”

“That sounds like something I would say.”

“You really don’t remember?”

Natasha shakes her head. “Do you want me to tell you the story?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Natasha repeats. “Did you know that there are different universes?”

Lila’s face lights up and she nods excitedly. “Like Star Wars? I told Mom I wanted to be a Jedi but she said that I can’t, because Star Wars happens in a different universe and there are no Jedi in our universe.”

Natasha sends a silent thank you to Laura as she returns Lila’s smile. “Exactly like that. The Jedi are from a different universe and, well…so am I.”

“Are _you_ a Jedi?” Lila breathes, her eyes impossibly wide.

“No.” Natasha can’t help but laugh, because this kid is so _Clint’s_ in every way possible. It’s not hard to understand why this universe’s Natasha would throw herself off a cliff for this girl, and she has a feeling that it won’t be long before she’d be willing to do the same herself. “There aren’t any Jedi in my universe either.”

“So what is there?”

“There’s me,” Natasha says carefully, unsure of how much she wants to divulge. “There’s your Dad. There’s the people we work for, all of that is the same.”

“Am I there?” Lila asks.

Natasha smiles at her sadly. “If you are, I’ve never met you.”

“Oh,” she responds quietly, processing this for a moment. “That’s sad.”

“It is,” Natasha agrees. “But now I’m here to make it right. And _maybe_ ,” she continues, drawing out the word, “I can give you some lessons with that knife if you promise not to tell your dad. Deal?”

For the first time all morning, Lila’s face breaks into a grin. “Deal.”

“Lila, sweetie?” The door to her room cracks open and Laura pushes her head through, only looking mildly surprised to see Natasha sitting beside Lila on the bed. “You’re going to make you and your brothers late for school if you don’t hurry up.”

“I was talking to Auntie Nat!” Lila protests.

“Auntie Nat will still be here when you get home,” Laura says, looking quickly to Natasha for confirmation, who nods quickly in response to the question in Laura’s eyes.

“Your mom’s right. Come on, let’s go back downstairs.”

Laura shakes her head slightly in amazement as she watches Lila skip down the stairs two at a time, waving her arms wildly in circles to prevent herself from falling as she reaches the bottom. “That’s the most life I’ve seen from her in _weeks_ ,” she says quietly. “What did you say to her, Nat?”

“The truth,” Natasha says simply. Because the truth can be hard, and complicated, and ugly, but she knows what it’s like to spend years scouring the universe for answers.

She also knows what it’s like to live a life that’s been built on a foundation of lies, but maybe they all need to tell each other the truth a little more often.

Laura squeezes her hand briefly. “Cooper’s in the kitchen,” she warns. “Clint and I tried to smooth things over as much as possible, but there’s only so much you can say, you know?”

“Thank you,” Natasha tells her, trying to inject as much sincerity as possible into her voice. “You didn’t have to do this, either of you. You could have told me to leave and I would have but instead you…” she shakes her head, swallowing back tears, because she’s already cried too much over the past few days. “Just…thank you.”

Laura comes to a stop on the landing, halfway down the stairs, and Natasha stops with her, looking at her curiously. “I suppose you don’t remember the first time Clint brought you here?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“I’ll never forget it,” Laura tells her. “You were so young and scared and you’d never had a home or a family or a place where you could be safe. I remember you didn’t sleep that first night because you didn’t trust me. It took you a week before you’d even walk around the house unarmed. That Natasha, the one I met all those years ago, this was her first safe space. And it still is, even if she doesn’t remember it.”

“This universe’s Clint really is one lucky son of a bitch,” Natasha says, hoping her voice doesn’t betray the flood of emotions coursing through her.

“Why’s that?” Laura asks.

“He has you.”

Laura smiles at her sadly, and Natasha can see the shadows of something akin to pain in her eyes. “I’m only half of what he needs.”

Nate collides with Natasha’s legs once more as she re-enters the kitchen, leaning back to grin up at her. “Hey buddy,” she laughs, resting a hand on top of his head as she lifts her eyes to meet the gaze of his older brother across the table. Cooper shifts uneasily in his chair as he looks back at her, but for the briefest of moments she can see the shadow of a smile flicker across his face.

The silence in the room is palpable, so thick that she could cut it with a knife.

“You’re not dead,” he says finally.

“That’s what I _said_ ,” Lila huffs.

“You _also_ said she lost all her memories,” Cooper shoots back.

“That part’s true, too,” Natasha responds. “Well, partly true. I still have some memories, but there are things you guys might need to help me remember.”

“But _not_ now,” Laura cuts in, bending to wipe a smear of peanut butter off of the corner of Nate’s mouth. “You’re all late enough for school as it is.”

“Right,” Clint agrees. “Let’s hurry up, or Mom’s never going to let me be on drop-off duty again.”

“Can Nat come?” Cooper asks.

Surprised, Natasha shoots a glance at Clint, who shrugs bemusedly. “Sure.”

Which is how Natasha finds herself in the passenger seat of Clint’s truck as the three kids pile into the back, a mountain of knees and elbows and backpacks, all talking over each other excitedly as they speed down the gravel road, the truck’s tires kicking up clouds of dust.

It’s easy enough for Natasha to involve herself in their conversation; all she has to do is smile and nod and occasionally ask a question or two. She realizes quickly that it’s not something she’s doing just to be polite, but because she genuinely, honestly _wants_ to be involved in the lives of these kids, wants to be here for them the way her counterpart in this universe had been. By the time Clint pulls up to the old brick school building they’re all trying to make Natasha guess their birthdays, laughing every time she gets one wrong because, “You’re supposed to _know_ this!”

“Last stop,” Clint calls out jokingly, and they all pile out of the truck in the same chaotic fashion that they’d entered.

“Bye, Nat!” Lila calls over her shoulder as a bell sounds across the yard, taking Nate’s hand as the three of them make their way towards the building.

Natasha waves back, stopping only when she turns to see Clint staring at her, a soft expression on his face. “What?”

He shakes his head in amazement. “It’s like you’ve known them your whole life.”

She considers this for a moment. “Maybe I have. Maybe our universes aren’t as separate as we thought.”

“What does that mean?”

She laughs, softly. “I have no idea.”

“Want to take the long way home?” he asks her.

Her lips curl upwards of their own volition, returning his smile. “Okay.”

The long way home turns out to be the road that takes them through town, which is utterly unremarkable in the way that all small Midwestern towns are, and yet achingly familiar somehow. When they’re about halfway through town, Clint turns off the main road, pulling onto the dirt shoulder across the street from what appears to be a small coffee shop, its door painted a brilliant shade of red, a sharp contrast to the shock of purple hydrangeas growing under the window.

Something about it tugs at the corners of her memory, and she wonders if she’s only convincing herself that these things are familiar because of how badly she wants them to be. “Have I been here?” she asks Clint.

“We used to come here all the time. Hasn’t been open for the past five years because the owner got…you know…snapped.” He pauses. “Why? Do you remember it?”

“I think I want to,” she responds.

He doesn’t press her for an explanation, and she doesn’t give one.

“You once declared their cinnamon rolls the best ones in all of America.”

“Did I?” She tilts her head to look up at him, grinning. “I think I might need to try them again so I can confirm that claim.”

“It was when I first brought you home.” Clint takes a deep breath, averting his eyes. “After Warsaw.”

She feels her breath catch in her throat. After all the ways that the threads of his universe seem to be inextricably woven with hers, she has to imagine that word carries the same meaning for Clint as it does for her. The day that he’d brought her in, the day she’d stood at the other end of his bow and looked down the shaft of his arrow into the conflict swimming in his eyes, and asked him to let her die.

It’s fitting, in a way, that the beginning of her life had so perfectly mirrored the end.

In this universe, at least.

(And in her universe, too, because a part of her had died with him on Vormir.)

Twice, she’d asked him to let her die, and here they both were, sitting in his truck outside a coffee shop that, for all intents and purposes, was _theirs_ , like it hadn’t taken all the powers in two separate universes to bring them back together again.

(Like the powers in those universes hadn’t done it like it was the easiest thing in the world.)

“Nat?” He touches the side of her face gently, calling her back. “You still with me?”

“Yeah.” She shakes her head minutely, the small action bringing her mind out of the darkness that she finds it’s been slipping into more and more often recently. “Sorry, yeah.”

“Coffee?”

“Coffee,” she agrees.

The inside of the coffee shop reminds Natasha a lot of Clint’s house, full of wooden surfaces drenched in natural light, mismatched armchairs scattered around a stone fireplace built into the wall.

It’s empty apart from an older man standing behind the counter, but his eyes light up when he sees them. “I know it’s been five years,” he tells them. “But do you guys want the usual?”

“We have a _usual?_ ” Natasha hisses to Clint under her breath.

“Usual’s great,” Clint says loudly, before turning back to her, placing both his hands on her shoulders. “ _Relax_. He has no idea who we are.”

“How’s business, Tom?” Clint addresses the man behind the counter as he passes over two coffees, each topped with a dollop of frothed milk. 

“Oh, you know,” he answers with a shrug and a wry grin. “Picking back up pretty slowly after my unintentional sabbatical, but I’m sure things’ll get back to normal soon. Normal’s good.” He passes a plate over the counter to Natasha, its entire surface taken up by a large cinnamon roll absolutely drenched in a thick, buttery icing. His face softens slightly as he addresses her. “I hope those are as good as they used to be.”

Natasha returns his smile. “I’ll keep you posted.”

He waves away Clint’s offered credit card as he begins wiping down the espresso machine with a wet cloth. “On the house, guys. Least I can do.”

“Thank you,” Clint tells him sincerely, bumping his hip into Natasha’s gently as he makes his way towards a couch half tucked into the corner by the fireplace. She follows, sitting down beside him and wrapping her hands around her mug, letting the warmth soak into her skin. 

She can feel Clint’s eyes burning into her and she stares resolutely forward, taking small sips of her coffee, composing herself for the question she knows is coming.

“Have you thought about it any more yet?” he asks her finally.

“Thought about what?”

She hears his sharp intake of breath and the soft _clunk_ as he sets his coffee down on the table in front of them before he responds, “Staying.”

She reaches forward, tearing off a small piece of the cinnamon roll and shoving it in her mouth in order to buy herself time, momentarily distracted by the fact that her parallel universe counterpart had apparently been absolutely right about declaring them the best in all of America. “ _Damn_ , this is good.”

“Natasha.”

“Sorry.” She glances sideways at him. “It’s just…it’s not that easy, Clint, I…” 

“I get it,” he interrupts quickly. “You have a whole universe full of people who need you, people who miss you. It’s just...so do we. And I get that it’s different and that we’re not…well…and I _know_ it’s not fair for me to ask you to stay but…” he trails off, shaking his head. “Sorry, it’s…I shouldn’t have asked.”

She wants to tell him that that’s not it, that she hadn’t even realized how desperately she wanted to stay until he’d assumed that she didn’t, that nobody in her universe needs her, that she’d intentionally cut herself off from the team – left without ever telling them where to find her – because they’d _won_ and it was supposed to feel like a victory, but she’d only been able to focus on what she’d lost. She wonders if he knows this much, knows that he’s the only person besides Fury who ever knew the location of the Edinburgh safe house, knows that she’d gone there to be untraceable, which was part of the reason she’d been so shaken when he’d found her.

She’s spent the past two months bargaining with the universe, begging it for a second chance, for _this_ second chance. And she feels a deep, unsettling guilt for wanting it, for the ease with which she’s willing to abandon her own universe, even though she feels like it abandoned her first.

She wonders if he’d come with her, if she asked.

“Forget it,” he tells her softly, but he can’t quite conceal the hurt in his voice.

She almost does. It would be easier to take his offer, to pretend he’d never asked, to go back to deliberately ignoring the fact that at some point, she’ll have to decide whether or not she wants to stay. Neither of them know anything about the long term effects of staying in another universe; whether prolonging her stay will make it more difficult for her to get back home, whether her home universe may one day forget her entirely, whether this universe may decide to claim her as its own. And whether she’d ever be able to come back here, should she choose to leave.

“What do you want?” she asks him.

He considers this for a long moment. “I want you to be happy,” he tells her finally. “Whatever that means.”

She runs her thumb along the smooth handle of her mug, deliberately avoiding his piercing gaze as she asks him, “And what if I don’t know what that means anymore?”

Because what are you supposed to do after you save the world? Go back to managing a mostly empty communication channel like she’d been doing before? Go back to living in the compound, alone but for the occasional visitor, because almost all the rest of them had managed to move on in a way she couldn’t? Go back to a lifetime of solitude, searching for glimpses of Clint in their old safe houses, revisiting the parts of the map they’d touched together with the hopes that it might make her _feel_ something?

Maybe it’s not about going back, she thinks. Maybe it never has been.

Maybe it’s about moving forward, in small steps and giant leaps, crossing the boundaries that separate universes like they’re no more than lines drawn in the sand.

Neither of them are strangers to starting over, after all.

She’s quiet on the drive home. He glances over at her periodically but she keeps her face carefully neutral, a blank map that he can make neither head nor tails of. He knows it’s her way of compartmentalizing, retreating inside herself so she can make a decision, but he can’t help but feel like she’s shutting him out.

“You okay?” he asks her finally, when he can’t take any more of the uneasy silence.

“Yeah,” she responds, just a touch too enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’m just…thinking.”

“About?”

“How many universes do you think there are?”

“God,” Clint shakes his head, surprised, mostly at the fact that she never stops surprising him. “I don’t know. Hundreds, thousands maybe? Why?”

“They can’t all be as similar as ours are.”

“No,” he answers, stretching out the word, still not sure where she’s going with this. “No, they can’t.”

He can see her take this piece of information, turning it over in her brain, processing every angle of it before she finally speaks again. “Do you think somewhere out there, there’s a universe where we got it right?”

He doesn’t need to ask her what she means. It’s the same thing he’s been wondering himself ever since Scott and Peter had first approached him about the concept of the multiverse, a conversation that feels like it happened decades ago rather than mere days. He knows, intimately, in a way that he can’t quite explain that the threads that have tangled his fate inextricably with Natasha’s are stronger than the confines of any universe, strong enough to tear down the walls between worlds. He knows that they’ve found each other, _loved_ each other in every universe. And he wonders, the same as she does, whether there’s a universe where they managed to find each other without the pain, and the suffering, and the inevitability of being torn apart. A universe where they’re happy because the world has let them be.

“Yeah,” he tells her softly, reaching over to cover her hand with his, squeezing her fingers gently. “I think there is.”

She nods slowly as she laces her fingers through his, her loose hair tumbling over her shoulder like a fiery waterfall as she leans back to look at him. “Okay. I can live with that.”

“Ready to go home?” he asks her, even though home has never been a place for them, so much as a collection of moments.

He could watch her smile every day and never tire of the way it reminds him of the sun breaking through the clouds, timidly at first, and then radiant, bathing everything in its light.

“Yeah,” she tells him. “I’m ready.” 

“You’ll come back?”

“So soon you won’t even have time to miss me.”

“Natasha…”

“Clint, _relax_. I just need to go back to tie up some loose ends, make sure everyone knows that I’m going to be unreachable for a while.”

“And how long is a while, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” she answers. “As long as I want it to be.”

“Hey, come here.” He pulls her towards him, hugging her tightly, burying his face in her hair as he tries to memorize the feeling of his arms around her. His eyes are wet when he pulls back, betraying him. “Be careful, yeah?”

“Clint.” She laughs softly as she says his name. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Okay.” He nods, taking a step back, holding on to her hands for just a second longer before he drops them.

“Okay,” she agrees, reaching down to press the button on her wrist. “See you in a minute.”

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr (@natrasharomanova) / twitter (@hoboskywalker)


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